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Hot Standby. M580

Systems with controllers that provide hot backups are usually designed and installed on sites where damage to the controller's output is unacceptable. Such facilities are associated with explosive technological processes associated with radiation or chemical hazards. Energy or other facilities where interruptions in the continuous technological process can lead to large financial losses or damage to human lives.

In this article I will tell you about PLC from Schneider Electric M580.

This bunch of controllers allows you to create large control systems up to 5000 I / O signals.

This line of controllers is the next generation of PLCs that came to replace the redundant line of Quantum controllers. It implements an order of magnitude greater speed, expanded memory, compact dimensions (using the chassis from the M340), fully hardware implementation of redundancy functions (Redundancy)

Software Unyty Pro XL v12 in my personal opinion does not have any competitors at all. Quality and thoughtfulness in the smallest details of implementation. A vivid example of how a manufacturer thinks about the needs of its integrators.

Let me describe the advantages of this tool, which no other brands have (TIA Portal, Step7, Codesys, etc.):

1. Quality Help. Once trapped at the NDP at the nuclear power plant, for seven fences with a laptop and without the Internet, you can clearly begin to understand how the quality and clarity of the software affects the labor costs when commissioning a brand. In this help file there is an absolutely complete and exhaustive list of descriptions that may be required during the work. For example, I needed to unzip a rare weight measurement module - found it!

2. The software is optimized and does not require you to have an ultramodern powerful computer. It is optimized for different operating environments and will work well both on Windows XP with Pentium II, and on Windows 10 with Pentium Core i7

3. Software implementation. Can you imagine how many dry contacts can be placed on the ladder program (LD) program list if there are 63 columns horizontally and 100 rows vertically? This is 630 cells for placing contacts or any other elements in them, and within the same scheme! Such schemes can be done a lot. And now imagine that in online mode you can see visually where some contact is closed and which one is open (online color scheme). Structured text is generally a perfectly crafted tool. There is no imposing of tabulation and hyphenation rules, if an error is made while writing the code, then immediately the place of entry of the error is highlighted in red and when hovering gives a hint what exactly the system did not like. All languages ​​are according to the standard with small

4. Software simulator. In fact, it is a full-fledged controller that visually visualizes the process. No hangs or messages that open too many windows. The service is sufficient for debugging the SCADA application, that is, the network simulator, works without limitations in Modbus TCP server mode. The network does not fulfill requests.

5. Allows the implementation of debug screen forms, which can be used as a temporary means of the human-machine interface.

6. The boot boot sector is loaded into the controller by default. Even after minor changes, restart the system - everything will be preserved and will work

7. Changes in the PLC program code can be adjusted on the fly, without stopping the process (Online Build Changes)
What has changed markedly in Unity v12, in contrast to the versions 4,6,8,11:

1. It became impossible to assign own names to the derived data types of Device DDT devices. Everything is set automatically when creating devices

2. The IO Scanner function is now not in the options of the created communication connection, but in the DTM Browser. And you need to add Modbus Device and configure it in the same way

How redundancy works in general if you are connected to a system with redundant controllers and are online:

And you can use a fast Online-modification, which allows you to update the software without interrupting the operation of the PLC and immediately see the changes.

1. Connect to the Primary (192.168.10.10) controller

2. Make edits

3. Make Build Changes. The lower diagnostic portion of the screen will indicate the different

4. The Primary controller software will be updated without interrupting its operation, while the Standby controller will fall out offline due to the difference in versions (there will be a regular transfer of addresses 11th will be 10m, Standby PLC will take on the role of Primary PLC). The message on the panel will look red "A-Run_Primary / B-STOP / DIFFERENT"

After all the edits:

5. Disconnect from Primary Controller

6. Connect to Standby offline (192.168.10.11) controller

7. Download the application via the connection and Download or via the Transfer Project from Primary to Standby PLC option

8. After that, the message in the lower diagnostic part of the screen will change Primary Run / Standby offline

9. Transfer the DeviceDDT structure "ECPU_HSBY" to the table of displayed values "Animation Table". Change the value of "CMD_RUN_REMOTE" to 1, thereby activating the Standby Standby of the PLC

10. The message on the panel will look green "A-RUN_PRIMARY / B-RUN_STANDBY", that is, the reservation will be restored.

An important document describing the architecture of building a redundant PLC system M580 is described by the link: Modicon M580 Hot Standby System Planning Guide for Frequently Used Architectures